Hi Kalena
Could you please tell me if there are any special seo rules to keep in mind when developing or commissioning an ecommerce site?
Thanks
Natalie
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Hi Natalie
It’s hard to answer that question because every ecommerce site is different and presents its own challenges.
For example, if it is a large e-commerce site, it may be database driven, which means that product pages may contain session ids or multiple parameters that might confuse search engines. That would require a server-side solution of some kind.
It might offer thousands of products, meaning keyword research is a huge job and optimizing individual pages is extremely time consuming. That might require a script to integrate a meta tag / title tag template on every page.
It might be in a very competitive industry, meaning SEO of pages may not have much of an impact unless the site is hugely popular with very strong Google PR and backlinks.
I would say the most important thing you can do before SEOing an ecommerce site is RESEARCH. Your SEO Requirements Document will be crucial here, as will a very good dig into the site and the client company. To learn more about what should be included in your SEO Requirements Document, see my article: Before Launching Your SEO Campaign.
Learn as much as you can about the company, their customers, their goals and their target markets before you start any SEO activity.
For any e-commerce site I take the approach of being specific. the more specific your are in your keyword targeting the more sales you are going to get per visitor.
The more specific equals less traffic the upside of this is less competition making it easier to rank well.
Choose an e-commerce shopping cart that has a lot of plug-ins available also.
Hi there, good advice alll round, I’m not sure if all SEO’s consider this but I always like to establish with the customer their expectations and needs in terms of a breakeven point. This especially important if you are launching a new ecommerce site and relying solely on traffic from search engines, directories and social networks. Have a clear and acheivable financial forecast in place which meets your budget and SEO expectations.
I’m finding your blog threads very captivating and I’m learning a lot. Thanks for the help!